Introduction

This is where we explore the facilitation of learning and inquiry, and of organizational life, to enhance whole person development, participation and collaboration.

The motto of this section is:

Getting Better at Working Together!We now have all the tools necessary to make communities work.

or, in slightly more complex terminology: From a recognition of Equipotentiality, to a practice of Coliberation, the advance of any of us to the ability to engage in peer to peer relationships is dependent on the ability of all.

Peer to peer, as a distributed mode of organization and way of thinking, expresses itself not only in a technological infrastructure, but also in modes of organization, and in ways to stimulate social processes that are congruent with it. There is a emergence of a wide variety of dialogical techniques to ellicit collaboration and collective intelligence. While this section mostly focuses on the human-relational aspect of facilitation, it will also monitor technological enablers to this process.

Positive Image, Positive Action: The Affirmative Basis of Organizing. David L Cooperrider: discusses the power of positive imagery, the placebo effect in medicine,the pygmalion effect in education and human development, the relationship between positive-negative discourse in health, the balance of internal dialogue to emotional health, the effects of positive images on culture and the implications for management creating a theory of the affirmative organization.

Discussion

Online Facilitation: The onlinefacilitation listserv is for discussion about the skills, techniques and issues around online facilitation in a variety of Internet online environments and virtual communities. [3]

Citations

"The big lesson of the twentieth century for commoners was to discover that collective decision-making is a “lesser evil,” a response to scarcity that must be limited to situations in which this is inevitable. It’s not necessary for everyone to vote on a uniform if each one can wear what they want. It’s not necessary to agree on a menu if several different things can be cooked that will completely satisfy everyone. That is, where one person’s decision does not drastically reduces others’ possible choices, the sphere of the decision should be personal, not collective. Collective choices, democratic methods and voting are ways of managing situations where, more or less explicitly, there is a conflict in the use of resources. They are a “last option” imposed by scarcity. The point is to avoid, as much as possible, the homogenization that they involve. That is why in a community committed to abundance, the wealth produced is measured by the extent of the personal decision-space. It’s no good to create more goods and income if that doesn’t have an impact on everyone’s option-space. It’s no good to defend individuality if resources are not created to make it possible without conflict. To gain ground against scarcity, build abundance and therefore continuously enlarge the material base of personal decision-space is the objective of economic activity of an egalitarian community that works."

Chris Corrigan on the fifth mode of organization:

"Within the Art of Hosting community of practice, we have been looking at a fifth organizational paradigm, which is something like a combination of hierarchy, circle, network and bureaucracy. Some of us have been looking at what these four paradigms have to offer, for examples, hierarchy offers order and clarity, circle offers an equal reflective space, network offers an immediate ability to connect with whatever is needed, and bureaucracy helps channel resources where they are needed, "irrigating" initiatives or parts of an organization.

Certainly, each of these has a dark side, but if the benefits are illuminated and then transcended, you get a fifth organizational paradigm in which all four can be somehow present and somehow something new is born."

Alex Steffen on why we need peer sharing tools

"as we move more rapidly towards a bright green future, we are going to find ourselves more and more in terra incognita, doing things and creating things and combining things that have never before been done, created or combined. In order to do this well, we have to help each other by sharing what we've learned."
(http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007769.html)

Russ Volkmann on the relational stance for leadership

"Participants need to have “confidence that better outcomes emerge from joint work when the quality of interaction truly matters, rather than when tasks are the sole and primary focus.” This requires a “relational stance.” That is, members are open to the perspectives of others and the possibility that “any contribution by any group member can be a source of intelligence for the group…In sum, the view here is that contentious problems require leadership grounded in processes of joint and individual learning rather than influence (or authority) and that these learning processes must be conducted in a highly relational manner.”
(http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/archives/2009-01/2009-01-review-dunoon-ross-volckmann.php)

On Staying Non-Hierarchical

"To egalitarian groups that want to stay so, we could thus propose the following ethics: to not reduce any force of internal differentiation, for fear that it becomes vertical, but instead to increase it in all directions, to enrich the range of identities available: this is probably the best way not to flatten the (many) relationships within the group and turn them into one two-term relationship - dominating, dominated. In this way, the construction of our collective histories can stand a chance of no longer being at the mercy of the passions that affect it, subjugate it, and often sadden it: it would play with these passions, which would become joyful - including, yes, the passion for distinguishing oneself." (http://self-org.blogspot.com/p/anti-hierarchical-artifices-for-groups.html)

Ayni: a term with a meaning that’s closely related to minga. It describes a system of work and family reciprocity among membersa Filipino term taken from the word bayan, referring to a nation, country, town or community. The whole term bayanihan refers to a spirit of communal unity or effort to achieve a particular objective. of the ayllu (a community working on collective land).

Labso (Laboratory for Social Technologies) is a cross-over between open-source facilitations techniques and principles, strength-based approaches to change, and social interactions to help people 1) act together during a workshop to address a specific issue and 2) learn how the same techniques can be used to tackle any issue. The Labso is itself released in Open-source.

The Optimal Size of Groups: Christopher Allen of the Life With Alacrity blog has expanded his articles on group size, with an article on community sizes and another on personal circle sizes. The latter are our own self-centred circles (those we're in the middle of), while the former are circles of which we have chosen to be a member. The dynamics of the two, Christopher says, are different.

On Online Facilitation

The Loomio Facilitation Guide: "What if we started from facilitation principles and worked toward understanding software? This guide goes in-depth about applying key facilitation concepts in the online space." [7]

Community, Family and Leadership

Key lessons from human history
Asset-based community development
Running an ‘offers and needs market’
Relationship skills
Non-violent communication and conflict resolution
Diversity sensitivities (including GLBTQI, cultural, religious, disability, age, indigenous/First Nation)
Parenting and family dynamics
Dynamic teaching and group facilitation
Circle work and other decision-making techniques
Confident public speaking
Singing in harmony and dancing together
How to read and play music
Holding and participating in sacred rituals
Improvisation theatre
Storytelling
Restorative justice
Fun cooperative games for children and communities (including outdoor and card games)
Sharing law
Effective campaigning and lobbying
Child honouring and protection (including an introduction to ADHD, child trauma and special needs)
Graphic facilitation
Conversational French/Spanish/Mandarin/Arabic
Archiving (sound, video, images, stories, items, documents)

Key Tools

Technology for Communities project: "tools that are used by communities of practice, explain how each functions from a community perspective, and suggest why you might select the tool, given your community's orientation and the activities your community wants."